A Raven´s Touch
by Icea
Summary: Helena Stradford, one of the best students at Hogwarts, has been selected Head Girl. But why does the person she loathes start to care and show interest in her? DM-OC (Slight OotP spoilers)
1. Hair of a Raven

Disclaimer: Nope. I just wrote this story. All places, characters and spells belong to J.K. Rowling, with the exception of Ravenclaw-student Helena Stradford.

Author´s Note: I admit, I´m to lazy to come with something of my own, so it´s the basic Headboy/Headgirl plot, but (hopefully) this will not be like other fics.

Author´s Note 2: Since this is my first HP story, most of the characters will probably go out of character as the story develops. Also, if you don´t like fics where the author has changed some parts in the past, I suggest you go find another fic right away.

~*~

A Raven´s Touch

_Patil. Patil. Perks. Potter. Did she really say Harry Potter? Harry Potter? Oh well, why wouldn´t he come to Hogwarts? I do hope that I don´t end up in Slytherin.... Helena Stradford! The rather short girl walked forward to the Sorting Hat, and put it on her head. Almost immediately, she heard a voice inside her head. "Hmmmm, there´s no doubt about it. A great deal of brightness. I think I´ll put you in Ravenclaw!" The hat said the last word loud to everyone, and the girl went to sit at the table where people were cheering. When she sat down, she caught the eye of a boy from the Slytherin table, the one called Malfoy. For an unknown reason, he winked at her. From what her parents had told her, the Malfoy´s were feared by many, since there was a rumour that Mr. Malfoy had once been a deatheater, so she quickly looked down, and then turned her head to watch the remaining Firstyears who had yet not been sorted...._

Helena came back to reality as the car stopped, causing her to drop the letter she was holding. "We´re at King´s Cross already?" she asked the driver, who just nodded in response. She picked up her letter, took her belongings and waved for him to drive off. It had been like this ever since her parents had been killed by He Who Must Not Be Named. Everyone seemed to think that she was a child who needed to be taken care of. She sighed and turned her eyes to the letter once again. _"Miss Stradford, I have the honour to announce that you have been selected as this year´s Head Girl...."_ Head Girl. She must´ve read the letter at least a thousand times now. Head Girl. Her mother would´ve been proud, but a thought rested somewhere in the back of her head. Why was she Head Girl? Shouldn´t they have picked Hermione Granger? True, Hermione and she were just as good in almost every subject (and had been for 2 years), but Hermione was more careful, and she had more time on her hands. _I wonder why they chose me? I´m already the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, wouldn´t it have been wiser to take someone who had less to do?_, she thought, still with her eyes resting on the letter. She was so focused on the letter, that when she was about to go on the train, she didn´t take any notice where she was walking. "Ouch!" She looked up, and saw that she had been knocking Ginny Weasley over.

"I´m sorry Weasley", she said, while helping her up.

"Ah, don´t worry, and please, call me Ginny."

"Ok, then, Ginny." Helena was pretty good friends with the Gryffindors, but she still didn´t think she was close friends with them enough to call them their first names. After apologising once again, she began to wok her way toward the Head Boy and Girl´s compartment.

"Hey, Stradford!" She turned her head and walked back to the compartment she had just been walking past. In it sat Granger, Potter and Weasley.

"Hi. Shouldn´t you be sitting in the Prefect´s compartment?" Helena asked, giving them a confused look.

"No, it said in the letters that we didn´t have to sit together with the other prefects this year, don´t you remember?" Ron Weasley answered, giving her a just as confused look as she had been giving him.

"Oh...right." She gave a faint smile and tried to sneak away, but just as she was about to, she heard Granger´s voice asking; "You´re not the new Head Girl are you?" There really was no point in carrying on like this, so she answered truthfully "Actually, I am." It wasn´t until now she saw Hermione´s sad look and she quickly added "But personally, I think they did something wrong, so I´ve been walking around all week waiting for a letter saying _"Sorry for the inconvenience, but there has been a mistake...."_" she laughed "Now I´ll just have to figure out who the Head Boy is." She waved to them and left. She had a feeling that she knew who the Head Boy was, and she didn´t like it. It wasn´t Terry, ´cause she had been talking to him a few days ago, and it was obviously not Weasley, since he was in the compartment with Potter and Granger, which only left two possible persons left. MacMillan and Malfoy. Ah well, she would soon find out, as she was a few feet away from the Head Boy and Girl´s compartment door. She pushed it, and it creaked open.

She couldn´t see anyone, until she heard a low voice. "It´s you Stradford? And I who thought I´d have to spend the year living next to the mudblood." She shuddered at his last word and sat down as far away from him as she could. After a while she noticed that Draco was staring at her, in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. "What?"

"I was just thinking how lucky I was."

She raised an eyebrow. "In what way?" 

He gave her a smirk, and his eyes travelled down her body. She felt her eyes widening as his smirk grew wider, which made her feel even more uncomfortable than before. She just glared at him though, knowing he´d be walking around reminding her of that she blushed, so she waited. His eyes met hers pretty soon, and he finally answered. "At least you´re a pureblood Stradford."

She rolled her eyes. "I bet that´s the closest to a compliment you´ll ever get, right Malfoy?"

"If I have to be honest, well then...yes." He smirked, and to Helena´s big surprise, he walked over and sat down beside her. A little to close, in Helena´s opinion. Oh well, as long as he didn´t try to do anything.

The rest of the trip went fairly well, Malfoy didn´t stare at her, and he didn´t annoy her, so she could sit reading a book without problems. One thing bothered her though, and that was that Malfoy seemed to get closer and closer to her every time she looked up, just to make sure he wasn´t doing anything. Actually, he was sitting so close to her that he touched her, but she wasn´t going to be the one giving him more space. Suddenly she felt a hand touching the skin on her right arm, and she almost jumped because of the sudden touch. She looked down at her arm, and noticed that Malfoy had wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "What Stradford? You´re ok?", Malfoy asked, with a wide smirk and false concern.

"I would be if you could keep your hands off me." She shook her shoulders to try getting his hand off, but he had a too firm grip. She noticed that he looked more pleased with himself when she did this, so she quickly stopped. She decided to ignore him, but when he noticed that, he instantly drew her closer to him. She turned to look at him. "And what do you think you´re doing?"

"Isn´t that obvious?" He asked, giving her a mischievous smile. She made a face of disgust and turned to her book again. It seemed to work, since she felt his hand abandon her shoulder. She was just about to start reading again, when she felt something on the back of her head. God, now his fingers were in her hair! It was as if she had become lame, she just sat there, letting him do what he was doing, without saying or doing anything. He came very close to her, dangerously close, but he didn´t do anything more, he just kept his fingers in her hair. "Hmm, strawberry." Helena came back to her senses on that remark, and turned to face him.

"Wh-what?"

"Your hair. It smells of strawberries."

She raised her eyebrows, but decided not to be surprised by him, after all he hated her as much as she hated him. "Oh, so you´re saying you actually know how strawberries smells?"

"Yes." He didn´t say anything else, didn´t add anything that would make him more Malfoy-ish, which was strange, since he had never answered without adding anything that made her annoyed. He just stared right into her eyes, for which seemed like an eternity, until the train suddenly stopped. She took her things and got off the train. When she got out, she was glad that she had had her school robes on before going on to the train, since she wouldn´t have wanted Malfoy looking at her changing clothes.

~*~

The sorting and the feast in the Great Hall were over, and now Professor McGonagall was leading them the way towards their new dormitories. For some reason, Malfoy had insisted that she would walk between him and McGonagall, and she had a funny feeling that he was watching her from behind. But she didn´t have to get her mind troubled on this for long, since McGonagall stopped in front of a big portrait of a very well-dressed young lady. "This is the entrance to your common room. Miss Stradford, your room is located up the stairs on the left side, and Mr Malfoy, yours is up the right stairs. Any questions?" They both shook their heads and McGonagall continued, "This is Lady Veronica", she pointed at the portrait, "And your password is _Raven_. Goodnight to both of you." McGonagall left.

"So, how does it feel to be all alone with me Stradford?" Malfoy had once again one of his famous smirks on his face.

"Makes me wanna puke." She replied. It removed his smirk, but she didn´t get any time to celebrate her small, but significant, victory.

"It didn´t look like you were about to puke when we were on the train." The smirk was back on his face. 

She knew she didn´t have anything to say against that, so she quickly said "Raven" and entered, trying to get to her bedroom as soon as possible, but the common room was simply beautiful. She looked over at Malfoy, who had just entered himself, and was amused by the fact that even he had troubles hiding how beautiful he thought the room was. The instant he saw her looking at him, he quickly changed his expression and said "Hmph, not even half as nice as home." She hid a laughter and started walking up the stairs to her room. She had just started to walk the stairs when she heard Malfoy. "Hey, you want me to run my fingers through your hair, so that you can relax enough to fall asleep?" She turned around and glared at him for a long while before returning to walk up the stairs. God, this was going to be a long year...


	2. Dreams of Truth

Disclaimer: Nope. I just wrote this story. All places, characters and spells belong to J.K. Rowling, with the exception of Ravenclaw-student Helena Stradford.

Author´s Note: I admit, I´m to lazy to come with something of my own, so it´s the basic Headboy/Headgirl plot, but (hopefully) this will not be like other fics.

Author´s Note 2: Since this is my first HP story, most of the characters will probably go out of character as the story develops. Also, if you don´t like fics where the author has changed some parts in the past, I suggest you go find another fic right away.

~*~

A Raven´s Touch

The last two weeks had been a living hell. Every time she met Malfoy in the hall or in the common room he´d put on a smirk, just to make her remember what happened on the train. And along with her Head Girl duties, she had to do her homework and try to come up with good Quidditch practise times. And because it was the year when they were going to take their NEWTS, she put up even more work on her homework than before, even though she used to get over 100% on all her homework. She had wanted to ask Malfoy how he could deal with it, knowing he was the Captain of the Slytherin team, but knew she´d probably just get smirk and an answer that didn´t have anything to do with what she was asking. She sighed. She had just finished her Transfiguration essay and she still had to do homework for Potions, Charms, Arithmancy and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Thank God it was Saturday tomorrow! She would be able to do everything she hadn´t had time to do and not having to see Malfoy for a whole day. Oh well, it was getting late and she needed to be able to concentrate tomorrow. She yawned and went to bed...

_"Miss Stradford, I don´t know how to tell you this, but your parents....they´re....they are dead." Di-did he said they were...dead? No, they couldn´t be, she had gotten a letter from her mother just the other day, surely she would tell her if they were ill. She looked into the Headmaster´s eyes. They were dead serious. _

_"B-but how?" She stuttered, trying to hold back the tears starting to emerge from her eyes._

_"They were killed. By Voldemort." She started shaking at the mention of the name. Why had they been killed? The Stradford´s wasn´t the type Vold- He Who Must Not Be Named went after. They weren´t muggles or muggle-born witches and wizards. In fact, they were one of the oldest wizard-family´s, with a story as old as the Malfoy´s. She couldn´t fight the tears anylonger, as she, still shaking, asked Dumbledore a question she didn´t want to ask, but knew she had to._

_"Ho-How did they d-die?"_

_The Headmaster looked into Helena´s eyes. He didn´t want to tell her, but somewhere he understood that she had to know the truth. "They were first tortured by the Cruciatus curse, and then...they were killed by Avada Kedavra..." She couldn´t take it anymore, she fell down on her knees and just cried. It seemed to go on forever, the tears would never stop. And when the tears were gone, she did nothing but shaking. Nothing in the world could describe the pain she was feeling; it was as if she was torn apart. When finally, she had stopped shaking, she lifted her head, waiting to see Dumbledore still looking at her with concern in his eyes, but she wasn´t at Hogwarts anymore, she was in a place she had never seen before, yet it felt strangely familiar. She came to her feet and looked around. Everything around her was trashed, and it was dark and cold. Why did it look familiar? She had never set a foot in this...place before, and she had no idea of how she got there. "Helena" She looked around her, not being able to decide where the voice came from. It sounded like her father, but he was dead, Dumbledore had told her so. He couldn´t possibly have any reasons to lie to her, could he? "Helena..." It was the second time she heard the voice calling her name now, but it frightened her more than the first. Looking around her, not seeing anyone, she said "Wh-who is it?" _

_"It´s me Helena." She looked around. No one was there, but still she felt like someone was watching her._

_"Who are you? Wh-what do you want?" She was beginning to feel frightened now, and she had a shiver down her spine. Suddenly she thought she saw a character coming out of the darkness. Yes, it was someone, but she couldn´t see who it was because of the dim light. But for some reason, the person looked strangely familiar, as she had seen him, or her, many times before. She repeated again, now with a noticeable tone of fear in her voice "What do you want from me?". The person laughed, a cold horrible laugh. Somehow the laugh sounded familiar too, though she had never heard it before._

_"What I want? You´re responsible for my death Helena. As well as your mother´s."_

_Her lip started to tremble as she finally realised who it was. "Daddy?"_

_"Well who did you think it was?" This voice didn´t belong to her father. She spun around, and there, just a few feet from her, stood her mother. "I never thought you´d let us down like that. It´s all your fault!"_

_"I don´t understand, wha-....what´s my fault?"_

_"Our deaths!", her parents both screamed in unison. "You could´ve prevented it! You are responsible for us being killed!" Her parents continued yelling at her, as they came closer and closer..._

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Helena almost jumped out of bed. Everything had seemed so real; even some of her real memories were in that dream. She took deep breaths as she looked around the room to convince herself it had just been a dream. She calmed down a bit, nothing seemed different or strange. She decided to try to go back to sleep, but after not managing to keep her mind off the nightmare, she put on her clothes and walked down to get something to read. The Head´s common room was really breath taking, and she hadn´t really taken any notice of it after that first day, but as she sat down in the couch she noticed what a sight it was. She had decided to read the first book she saw on the table in front of her, since it always was covered in her or Malfoy´s books because of all the homework or schedules they got, and if she happened to pick a boring book from the History of Magic class, she might just fall asleep from reading it, and that would be good too. _"Hogwarts: A History"? Oh well, it´s not that bad..._ She picked it up and started reading, but she didn´t get far until she saw a shadow over the pages she read. "Can´t sleep Malfoy?", she said with sarcasm, without looking up.

"I don´t know about you, but I find it rather hard to sleep when someone screams in the middle of the night."

It hit her just where he wanted. She immediately blushed and told herself not to look at Malfoy, she didn´t want him to win. But her embarrassment soon turned to anger and confusion, as he started to massage her shoulders.

"Malfoy, listen now and listen carefully, ´cause I won´t say it again. Get your hands off me!"

"Oh, but I think you want my hands on you."

She spun around and stood up. "Bastard!"

"Oh, so I was right then?" He had another one of those infamous smirks of his on his face. God, how much she wanted to remove it.

"Well of course you were right.", she replied with sarcasm, "Maybe in your dreams." she added, now with her usual tone. She was about to go up to her room, but Malfoy cut her off. "Do you have a problem with me going up to my bedroom? If not, I suggest you get out of my way." However he didn´t move, he just watched her, obviously in amusement. Several minutes went past, or, so it felt, none of them spoke, none of them moved. Helena was determined not to walk around him, and Malfoy was determined to not move out of her way. "You did hear what I said, right?" She asked, raising an eyebrow as she spoke. Still, he didn´t say anything, just nodded, still with an expression of amusement on his face. She decided to change tactics, and leaned to the wall as she tried her best to have a boring tone as she spoke. "Ok fine, you´re not going to move, I´m not going to move, so why don´t we just stand here all day? I mean, it´s in the middle of the night on a Saturday and we don´t have any subjects today or tomorrow, so we might just stand here all weekend staring at eachother." For a few seconds, it looked like it actually had worked, Malfoy looked down at his nails instead of looking at her, and it looked like he was about to move, until he opened his mouth. 

"You know, you´re tries in getting me out of your way were rather good, but not as good as they´d have to be." She glared at him, gave a sigh and closed her eyes, waiting for him to give up.

"You´re smiling Stradford." She opened her eyes at this remark.

"So?"

"Didn´t know I was the one you saw every time you closed your eyes."

"Like I´d be smiling when thinking of you. Oh wait....I do smile when thinking of you! But when I think of you, you´re either under a hex, tortured or dead." Now it was her time to celebrate a victory. Malfoy´s smirk died away, and he had nothing to say back. "What. Cat caught your tongue?" She loved this moment. Her smirking at a mute Malfoy, oh she wanted the moment to last forever. "Soooo....are you going to move?"

"No."

"And why not?"

"You don´t humiliate a Malfoy." It wasn´t until now she noticed the glare he fixed on her. Those icy grey eyes staring at her. She resisted the urge to shudder, and just stared back, meeting his eyes.

"So you´re just going to stand there to pay back?" She said it in her usual tone, with a hint to confusion. Still, he did not answer her, just stared at her. She knew she wouldn´t get him out of her way, especially not now, so she started to walk past him, but Malfoy gripped her wrist.

"I would sleep with one eye open if I were you." He let go of her hand, and she continued walking up._ Yeah, like I´d be able to sleep anyway..._ she thought, throwing her onto her bed, trying to forget the dream...

~*~

"Hey, you ok?"

"Wh-what? Yes, I´m fine. Didn´t get much sleep last night though.", she replied, trying to convince Terry with a smile. Helena and Terry had always been good friends, even after they broke up in 6th grade. Though both probably knew that it wouldn´t last when they came together in the end of 5th year, they tried to work it out but it hadn´t been enough. Still, when he was concerned about her, it was like they still were together.

"Something troubling you?" 

"No Terry, I just couldn´t sleep." She saw that he still wouldn´t believe her, so she quickly continued talking with Padma about the homework they had gotten from Professor Tarrae. 

"And I don´t know how to be able to finish this paper, I mean she must be completely out of her mind..." Helena´s concentration was failing and she turned away from Padma to yawn, when she caught the eyes of Malfoy from the Slytherin table. She immediately started to smirk at him, making him remember that she had put him down, thinking he´d look angry or have an expression of pure hatred, but his face was blank, no emotions whatsoever. She found this strange, considering that he practically told her he´d put her under a curse, and still, he just sat there, watching her. "Helena, are you listening to me?"

"What? Oh yes, you were talking about some homework."

"I was talking about tha-" Padma broke mid-sentence. An owl came flying with what seemed a small box. Strange, there has never come any mail on Saturday´s before, at least not anything bigger than a newspaper. And to Helena´s big surprise, the owl dropped the package in front of her. She opened to box, to find something wrapped in paper, and a letter. 

_Dear Miss Stradford,_

_We are sad to inform you that this is all we could find which belonged to your parents._

_We searched the house several times without any luck._

_Yet again, we feel deep compassion for you._

_Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic_

Helena felt her eyes well up with tears as she unfolded the small package of paper. It revealed two rings, her father and mother´s wedding rings. "Sorry I have to go." she whispered and ran out of The Great Hall.

~*~

She sat on the stairs going up to her room and cried. It was a miracle that she had been able to get up to her common room, speak the password between the sobs and manage to get as far as the stairs. She held the letter in one hand and the rings in the other. She had read the lines over and over again. "_We are sad to inform you that this is all we found_....." she dropped the letter and the rings and just sat there, shaking. _It´s my fault....it´s all my fault._

She didn´t know for how long she had been sitting there; a minute, an hour. It didn´t matter, nothing mattered anymore. Why continue living when all she cared about was gone? Where was the meaning in all of this? She hid her face in her hands as a new flood of tears followed eachother down her cheeks. From far away she thought she heard something open, like a door or something, but she could only be imagining, it was just something she thought she heard. Though she did react when she thought she heard someone pick up something from the floor. She looked up and saw Malfoy holding her letter and her parent´s wedding rings.

"That letter is private."

"I didn´t read it."

"Oh sure."

He sat down beside her. "I don´t read personal letters, unless they belong to Saint Potter." Helena gave a small laugh, but tears still escaped from her eyes. "Sooo....may I read it or will you tell me what it says?" he asked. Helena frowned at him and started to get up, but then he continued "Even if you don´t want to tell me, I will find out sooner or later. My father has contacts you know." She sat down again, knowing he was right. His father had just been in Azkaban for a month, since there were no real evidence against him, and after that he had gotten even more power in the ministry of magic. "Just go on and read it then."

He read it, and just sat there saying nothing for a long while. Then he opened his mouth. "So, your parents are dead?"

She just nodded to response.

"When did it happen?"

She was silent for a while, not knowing if she wanted to tell Malfoy. "In exactly a month, it will be one year ago." She buried her face in her hands again, not caring whether her enemy would see her crying. Then she felt something warm embrace her, and she didn´t have a clue of what it could be.

He had put his arm around her, dragging her close to him. But she didn´t try to push him away this time, she let him hold her. They sat there for a long time, until the last tear was shed. She got away from him, gave him a faint smile and began to walk up the stairs to her room. He stood up and started to walk in direction of his stairs, when she turned around. "Thank you."

He himself turned around, an eyebrow raised. "Anytime." he replied...


	3. Not Like It Seems

Disclaimer: Nope. I just wrote this story. All places, characters and spells belong to J.K. Rowling, with the exception of Ravenclaw-student Helena Stradford.

Author´s Note: I admit, I´m to lazy to come with something of my own, so it´s the basic Headboy/Headgirl plot, but (hopefully) this will not be like other fics.

Author´s Note 2: Since this is my first HP story, most of the characters will probably go out of character as the story develops. Also, if you don´t like fics where the author has changed some parts in the past, I suggest you go find another fic right away.

~*~

A Raven´s Touch

Helena had calmed down during the past three hours she had been sitting doing her Potions and half of her Defence Against the Dark Arts homework. She went downstairs and found Malfoy sitting on the couch just staring at the book in front of him. "What are you doing?"

He obviously hadn´t heard her, since he almost jumped and turned around to face her. "That´s none of your business Stradford."

She raised an eyebrow. "By the way, I didn´t get my letter and the rings back."

He gave a slight smirk. "What letter?"

He was playing a game with her, and she who had thought he might have changed. "You know what letter I´m talking about Malfoy." He looked at her with the best expression of confusion he could come up with. "Or did you get amnesia all of a sudden?" She started to get angry. All that comforting and he was just playing a stupid game with her!

"No I don´t have amnesia. At least I can´t remember having amnesia." He winked at her and stood up, walking closer to her. "Here." he handed her the rings, "But I think I´ll keep the letter."

"Why? What could you use my letter for?" She said, and he instantly smirked at her. "What, you´re going to blackmail me or something?"

"I see why they put you in Ravenclaw, Stradford."

"Are you trying to compliment me?"

"What if I am?"

She glared at him and decided to go back to the subject of blackmailing. "And what makes you think you would be able to blackmail me?"

"I thought that you didn´t want people to walk around feeling sorry for you."

Helena bit her lip. She knew he was right in his assumption, she didn´t want people to feel sorry for her. She was having a mental battle with herself when she opened her mouth again. "What should I do so that you won´t show that letter?" He looked so satisfied with himself that Helena almost slapped him, but she managed to control herself.

"Well....you could massage my shoulders for a start."

"WHAT?" Helena couldn´t believe what she just heard him say. He wanted her to massage him? There had to be a hidden purpose in this...

"Well, would you rather massage Goyle?" She gave him a horrified look. "Thought not." He went to the couch, sat down and took up his book again. She just stood where she stood and tried to come up with a good curse to use on him. "So....going to start massage me soon?"

~*~

Strangling him would be fun. Helena was on her way back to hers and Malfoy´s common room. He had been torturing her for weeks by making her avoid her friends, give him numerous massages and making her call him "Sir". But that would end, she wouldn´t take his crap anymore, even if it meant having everyone on Hogwarts feeling sorry for her. She was a few feet away from the painting of Lady Veronica, when the painting started talking to her. "He has his friends in there. Are you sure you want to enter?"

"How many are they? His friends I mean."

"Three. Two big boys who looked like they had more muscles than brains and a rather annoying girl."

"Crabbe, Goyle and Parkinson then. And Lady Veronica, I though you´d never use words like that." Helena smiled.

"Well, times change. There aren´t many noble people like me left, and I figured it would be rather pointless for me to keep all my noble manners."

"You might be right. _Raven_." The painting flung open, and Helena entered. It didn´t take long until she saw Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle sitting on the couch, with Parkinson looking more like an attachment to Malfoy than a human being. The sight of them all disgusted her, especially Parkinson, so she came out from the shadows. "Are my eyes deceiving me, or have you grown an extra pair of arms and legs Malfoy?"

Parkinson looked up and instantly frowned, making herself looking like a rat. "What are you doing here?"

"What I´m doing here? Oh Parkinson, where have you been the past two months? If you had paid any attention, you might´ve noticed that I´m Head Girl."

"That should´ve been me." Parkinson muttered, glaring at Helena. "If the world would have some sense, I´d be this year´s Head Girl."

"And what a horrible world that would be." Helena was almost certain that Malfoy would do something to remind her of that he could show the letter, since she had insulted Parkinson out loud, but he just sat there, trying to hide a smirk. It surprised her, but then she saw Crabbe and Goyle, obviously not understanding anything of what she had said. She tried to stop laughing inwards, while she asked, "You understood that? Or should I take it slower?" They obviously understood that she was insulting them now, since Goyle looked like he was about to kill someone, and Crabbe clenched his fists. "You got that anyway? Good." She decided it was best to go away, so she made her way for the stairs, but stopped and turned around to throw a last insult at the four figures on the couch. "You know, if you bring more of your Slytherin friends next time, I´ll be able to have my own garden soon."

"What do you mean?" Crabbe asked, still looking furious, but with an expression that showed that he understood absolutely nothing as well.

"Well, I have a pansy-" she looked at Parkinson, and smirked. "A cactus-" now her eyes travelled to Malfoy, and she could see him starting to get angry. Then she looked at Crabbe and Goyle. "And two tufts of weed...Well, goodnight!" She headed for the stairs, but managed to take two steps, when she felt something hit her head from behind. She tried to stay conscious, but then everything started to whirl around her and a shadow crept in front of her eyes as something hit her again, and she felt the cold floor underneath her, as darkness overcame her...

~*~

She woke up finding herself lying on a bed under a blanket, very different from where she was when she passed out. Oh well, I´m in the hospital wing. She closed her eyes to go back to sleep but something wasn´t right. It didn´t smell like the hospital wing. The hospital wing usually smelled of potions and other medications, but this room just smelled...like Malfoy. She didn´t want that last thought to come up, but it did. How could she not know how he smelled? After all, she had been giving him at least over 20 massages by now, and she was dead tired of it. She tried to sit up, and she instantly felt a sharp pain from the back of her head, but she had to know where she was. "Lie down Stradford, no need to pass out twice in a matter of 4 hours."

"Malfoy, would you please keep your mouth shut and get out?" she said, trying to focus enough to be able to see straight.

"I don´t think you´re the one to tell me what to do in my own room."

"What? Your room? Ho-how did I end up here?" she finally manage to see something, Malfoy, but he had an eyebrow raised and looked almost concerned. "And take that expression off your face, you look ridiculous."

The previous expression was wiped away by yet another one of his smirks. "I carried you up here and it seems like my previous expression is already gone." 

"You carried me?" she replied not believing what he just had said. "And why would you carry me up to your room and let me...occupy your bed?"

"Well, if someone had found you on the floor all knocked out, they would´ve thought that I had done something to you, and that would not have been good for my reputation." 

Of course, why hadn´t she thought of it? All that mattered to Malfoy was himself and his reputation, although Helena couldn´t come up with something that would make him look even more bad than he already looked. "By the way, who did hit me and with what? I doubt that I got fist in the back of my head."

"Crabbe hit you first, and the second one was Goyle. And as for what they hit you with, let´s just say we had Quidditch practise half an hour before you came to the common room."

"They hit me with Beater bats? How stupid can a person get?"

"Well, they´re obviously bright enough to understand that you insulted them by calling them two tufts of weed. And I must admit that I´m surprised, because I never would have imagined that they´d understand something like that." Malfoy answered, and shook his shoulders. "But then, you waited a bit before starting to walk up the stairs, so it might´ve given them some time to understand it."

"Wow Malfoy, it almost sounds like you´ve actually been thinking."

He turned to face her, now looking slightly angry. "Oh it does? You know, if I were you, I´d be careful so that I wouldn´t get thrown out of the room."

"Oh, don´t bother, I can walk. And I never asked to be carried up here in the first place." she quickly replied, went out of Malfoy´s bed, and went to the door. But before she had managed to open the door, everything started to spin around and go black. She fell backwards, but a pair of strong arms caught her before she hit the floor.

"Hm, seems like you´re destined to end up in my arms." Malfoy said, smirking. Helena instantly made a face of disgust and tried to raise up and walk away again, but found that everything started to spin as soon as she moved a little, and that Malfoy held a firm grip around her waist. Then he did something she hadn´t expected, he lifted her up and carried her to the bed again. She was a bit surprised, but decided that he wouldn´t see her surprised.

"Oh Malfoy, so you do care for me...Who would´ve guessed?" she tried to smirk, but now even that caused her head to ache, so she stopped.

"Well, I wouldn´t choose the words 'care for you', it´s more like I can´t resist having a good-looking woman within my reach."

She frowned at him. "Now I´m extremely disgusted."

He didn´t say anything in return, instead he laid her down on his bed and it didn´t take long until she fell asleep...


End file.
